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The PlayStation 3 is the highly anticipated next-generation Sony game console expected to be released in 2005. The new system will feature the Cell processor jointly developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba and an Nvidia graphics processor.

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GAMES for PlayStation 3!

This following a list of games planned to be released for the Sony PlayStation 3 console. As the PS3 itself has not yet been released as of 2004, the list is subject to change.

The PlayStation 3's CPU will be a chip codenamed "Cell", and the system will use chip-to-chip interface technology and memory technology from Rambus. Cell's technical details were released at the February 2005 ISSCC. IBM has won the contract to produce Cell chips for the console. The CPU's supposed distributed processing features have been of great interest to the press, speculation being that many items in the home, with differing numbers of Cell chips, can pool their power. Cell is a dual-core, 64-bit RISC IBM POWER derivative. Early versions of the chip will be 90-nm, with a change to a 65-nm process, if cost and performance allow. Abstracts from presentations to be presented at ISSCC show the Cell processor running at 4.6 GHz.

Graphics Processing Unit

In December 2004, Nvidia announced that they have been in a multi-year agreement with SCEI to develop the PlayStation 3's GPU, a custom variant of their next-generation graphics processor. In fact, they had worked for two years on the chip before making the announcement. They were previously responsible for the GPU in the Xbox console. The GPU will be manufactured at the joint Sony/Toshiba fabrication facility in Nagasaki, Japan.

RAM

Reuters news service reports that Elpida will be supplying the RAM used in the Playstation 3, and the company confirms spectulation that the Playstation 3 will utilize the 512 megabit version (64 Megabyte per RAM chip) of XDR DRAM, with Rambus' interface technology. Up to four can be used per Cell chip, for a maximum RAM figure of 256 Megabytes per Cell Chip.

Anticipation

As the latest in a series of extremely popular game consoles, anticipation surrounding the PS3 is high. Fans have already started designing images of what they think the console will look like. However, there have not been any official designs publically released by Sony as of yet. Dedicated Sony loyalists have also formed various forums, which they use to discuss all aspects of the next generation gaming system. Sony has announced that the PS3 will appear (possibly in playable form) at E3 in 2005, but will debut ahead of that event.

PlayStation 3 to be easy on developers

SAN FRANCISCO. It's big, complicated and shares a fair amount of DNA with IBM servers, but there's no reason to be afraid of the Cell processor, Sony technicians told game developers on Wednesday.

That's because Cell, the chip that will power the next version of Sony's PlayStation video game console, will use programming tools that developers should already be familiar with and new tools that should allow them to work smarter, two researchers from Sony Computer Entertainment America said during a panel discussion at the Game Developers Conference here.

"The Cell is a complicated piece of machinery," said Mark DeLoura, manager of developer relations for SCEA. "What we can to do to make it easy for you, we'll do...We don't want to make you learn a new API (application programming interface) every time we come out with a new chip."

Sony has been working on the Cell, in partnership with IBM and Toshiba, for four years. Engineers revealed architectural details of the chip last month, explaining that it will be a multicore processor based on IBM's Power architecture.

Sony shared some of the first programming details on the chip on Wednesday, promising that Cell would adapt many existing development tools rather than force developers to learn whole new languages.

For starters, said DeLoura, Cell graphics will rely on a variation of the standard OpenGL library already widely used for PC games. Sony and software consortium the Khronos Group are developing Open GL/ES, a dialect of OpenGL optimized for interactive content, DeLoura said.

"OpenGL is huge - it has a lot of we just don't need for games," he said. "We've developed something for games, not running CAD (computer-assisted drafting)."

Cell will also use Cg, a language developed by graphics chip leader Nvidia for creating high-level graphics effects. And programmers will be able to control the eight "synergistic processing elements" that account for the bulk of Cell's horsepower using standard C or C++ tools, instead of the exacting assembly-level programming required with the current PlayStation 2.

New tools include Collada, a dialect of XML (extensible markup language) being created by Sony and creators of leading development tools to serve as a standard format for describing game assets. The goal is to save developers the hassle of recreating the same visual elements in different games. Make a great looking pine tree, for example, and you'll have a uniform way to describe the tree to other development tools and game systems.

"The tool vendors are working with us to create the importers and exporters for you," DeLoura said. "It's their job to make sure your stuff arrives intact."

Such reassurances were especially welcome after Dominic Mallinson, research director for SCEA, explained likely programming models for getting the most out of Cell's nine processing units, a task he likened to creating music for a large orchestra. System-level work will be handled by the operating system, but it'll be up to developers to figure out how to slice and dice their computing tasks.

"You, the developers, are the composers," Mallinson said. "It's up to you to assign tasks to get the best possible performance."

Source - gamespot.com &lt; news.com &lt;PS3 Resource Centre 2005

[ 13. March 2005, 09:10: Message edited by: Apofiss ]

Smith will Suffice

10-03-05, 21:24

woo hoo :D

cant wait for a glimpse at the new dsign of the console and the in game graphic capabilities!

-Smith

irjudd

11-03-05, 04:20

I love Nvidia's stuff the best :D So I'm happy to hear of their ventures into the console realm

UNDERTAKER

11-03-05, 11:47

This years E3 is going to be amazing! I can't wait!

RavenLettan

11-03-05, 14:49

I've heard the Hype..
Microsoft Windows running DirectX 9.0c and X-Box are already running XNA 1.0
Microsoft, and Nintendo Next Generations are also going to be using it.

Simple fact of the next generation is, in order to develop for the Playstation 3; there will need to be an Engine developed for it. While developers might be already familiar, this still means porting.
For every other plaform, it is simply a case of adding options like Controls, Saving/Loading, and other niggling simple 5minutes tasks to the engine created in XNA.

I mean why the heck does Sony believe everyone is moving to Middleware? So they can concentrate on the games again rather than the engine.

What I'm worried about is NVIDIA being screwed over again. Microsoft really did a number on them over the X-Box, which is technically speaking 80% NVIDIA Hardware. (RAM,GPU,MPU,Chipset,Audio,Network)

Ho hum.. on the plus side the GeForce Series-7 should pretty much rock being the first to support DirectX10/XNA's Shader 4.0 Model. It shows in the Series-6 Models that IBMs influence has really helped, and despite all of the Radeons' "Optimisations" they are falling behind, with their pretty inferior technology.

tlr online

12-03-05, 13:49

Sounds good! Thanks for the info.

SpArKy

12-03-05, 20:44

I just carnt wait, i dont know what to expect. If Doom 3 and other similar games look so real already. Whats next. I visted HULL UNIVERSITY TODAY, and i went into there HIVE corridor, full of technology. We went into this one room with motion sensors in it and we put on these VR glasses. This woman then showed us how good the hype really was and the benefits it could implement into todays society from research to help curing cancer. She brought up one image that was scanned in using these lazer things, which was the outside of the university. It wasnt very shocking i was in shock, she could move the 3D environment with a glove like in the Minority Report. She then took us on a tour around a full high res version of the local shopping center that was being built. I just couldnt believe it, i felt like i was just walking normally.

Precious Bass

13-03-05, 05:35

When does the Playstation 3 get released???

Chall!

Apofiss

13-03-05, 08:42

PlayStation 3 is estimated to be available sometime in 2006, but recent developments suggest that it may in fact arrive as late as 2007, or as early as fall (October to December) 2005.

Apofiss

24-03-05, 18:41

PlayStation 3 launch 'ahead of E3', says Sony

The Register - Sony will unveil its PlayStation 3 console before the start of the E3 games show, company spokespeople revealed this week.

E3 opens its doors in Los Angeles on 17 May. The implication of the Sony staffers' comments, made to US news site GameSpot, is that PS3's outing will come much sooner.

However, as European news site GamesIndustry.biz points out, Sony often holds launch events just a few days ahead of E3; and everything the Sony representatives said this week could also apply to such a time as, say, a late March announcement.

Sony itself signalled that the event could come much earlier than just ahead of E3 at its last annual analysts' day. Its roadmap, which accurately listed the Japanese and US PlayStation Portable release dates, points to an announcement well ahead of E3, in Q1 2005, the last quarter of Sony's FY2004, when ends on 31 March

Schedules change, of course - look what appears to have happened with the PSP's European launch. But with this week's formal unveiling of Cell, the processor used in PS3 - not to mention the anticipated launch of Xbox 2, and possibly Nintendo's 'Revolution' too, at E3 - Sony may well want to kick-start public interest in PS3 as soon as it can.

Then again, the console is more than a year away from shipping - according to the previously mentioned roadmap - so a month here or there may not matter too much to the company. ®

Sega today indicated that the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation will be available this holiday season. The news came in the form of Sega's announcement of its first next-gen game, a first-person psychological thriller called "Condemned." The game will appear in Winter 2005.

Condemned, which is being developed by Monolith, will have players hunting for serial killers using their instincts, forensic tools and melee combat. Gamers will control FBI agent Ethan Thomas through multiple urban environments filled with deadly sociopaths.

"New leaps in technology are allowing our teams to create immersive game environments that are incredibly realistic," said Samantha Ryan, CEO of Monolith Productions. "Monolith's goal with Condemned is to combine a disturbing atmosphere with realistic physics, devious AI, and a sophisticated combat system."

Condemned is also slated to appear on PC when it ships this Winter.

All content copyright DailyGame 2002-2005

Draco

24-03-05, 18:59

Maybe I should develope my game for PS3.

croft28

26-03-05, 02:23

Cant wait!

tlr online

27-03-05, 04:08

According to The Register, both XBOX2 and PS3 will be using similar hardware. Microsoft recently reported that revenue from XBOX hasn't met targets, although the Halo series has boosted profits.

Sony Playstation continues to outsell rivals hands down.

And OH MY GOODNESS!! Has anyone got a PSP yet? What am amazing piece of technology!!

croft28

27-03-05, 09:37

I havent got one yet, but the PSP is so cool!

Apofiss

27-03-05, 10:02

Some (old) quite interesting interview...

Pixel Shader 3

Neoseeker: Branching and looping are new introductions into PS3. One feature of pretty much every programming language is the ability to branch and loop. It was mentioned that the Nalu demo uses a single shader for the both the skin and scales. If you were to have had to write Nalu in PS2 what would have been the challenges that the developer would have had to overcome in terms of language limitations (we'll ignore the instruction limit for now).

David Kirk: Without branching and looping in complex shaders, each branch path or loop pass has to be rendered as a separate pass, with alpha test to suppress the pixels that shouldn't be rendered in that pass. Consequently, without Shader Model 3.0, Nalu would have been 1/2 or 1/4 the speed, as well as lower quality.

Neoseeker: In this next generation that NVIDIA will be the only company supporting PS3. One of the goals for common APIs like DX and OpenGL are to abstract hardware details from developers. Obviously there is a bit of a divergence in terms of hardware capability. With pressure to finish games relatively on time especially for smaller development houses, what is your view on support for architecture unique features like PS3 instead of just PS2 support? Are developers going to make the effort to support PS3 over PS2 as it will arguably limit their market.

David Kirk: Anything that can be programmed in PS 2.0 just runs in PS 3.0 with no changes. It just runs faster, and looks better. Anything that can be programmed in PS 3.0 can be converted into multipass versions for PS 2.0. It just runs more slowly and looks less good. Developers always support the high end and most advanced API and effects, because it's their marquee demo. They want their game to look as cool as possible. Dumbing down the shaders to run on PS 2.0 can be accomplished in the same way as lower end, older generation hardware has always been supported. The developers creates a simplified path for older hardware. Developers do that now, to support DX8 hardware, and this is even easier. The best analogy is back to when multitexture was introduced. You could make the same effects with more passes - it was just slower. It was also easy for developers to create both paths.

Neoseeker: How difficult is it to port PS2 shaders to PS3?

David Kirk: Dead easy. They just run, without modification http://www.tombraiderforums.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

More (http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Features/geforce6800/8.html)